Jurgen Klopp’s time at Liverpool is ticking down as he prepares to end nine years at Anfield this summer. Despite a disappointing end to his Merseyside reign, the German can still be pretty proud of what he’s achieved.
The Reds claimed the Carabao Cup in February after beating Chelsea in the final, sparking hopes it would result in a trophy spree to end Klopp’s spell with an unprecedented quadruple.
However, Liverpool have fallen away in the title race and look destined to lose out on the Premier League crown to either Man City or Arsenal.
They went out of the FA Cup to Man United and were dumped out of the Europa League by Serie A side Atalanta – swiftly ending those lofty ambitions. But after bringing seven trophies to Anfield with a modest net spend after taking over in 2015, Klopp should have no regrets.
Mail Sport has assessed how Liverpool’s net spend compares to their other ‘big six’ rivals across the same time frame.
They went out of the FA Cup to Man United and were dumped out of the Europa League by Serie A side Atalanta – swiftly ending those lofty ambitions. But after bringing seven trophies to Anfield with a modest net spend after taking over in 2015, Klopp should have no regrets.
Mail Sport has assessed how Liverpool’s net spend compares to their other ‘big six’ rivals across the same time frame.
A net spend of £346m is the best of their big six rivals, and although they haven’t won as many trophies as Man City since Klopp arrived, they have probably done the best business and kept their costs low, while still winning a string of silverware.
And at the time of a lot of the deals, not all of them were the household names they are today when they joined. Mohamed Salah was a rising star at Roma before his £43m move from Roma, before he turned himself into a powerhouse at Liverpool. The same goes for Sadio Mane and Virgil van Dijk.
Of course there’s been some misfires along the way – looking at you Darwin Nunez and Naby Keita – but a majority of the time their business has beared fruit, such as the £55m outlay on Alisson in 2018 that guaranteed them a world class goalkeeper.
Those purchases laid the groundwork for building a team of world-beaters that would go on to win the Champions League in 2019 and the Premier League the following year – which was the 2019-20 campaign that saw them spend just £10m and raise nearly £40m.
Outgoings have helped Liverpool a lot in terms of net spend. Barcelona paid £105m for Philippe Coutinho in 2018 and two years later they offloaded academy prospect Rhian Brewster for pure profit after Sheffield United bought him for £23.5m.
Similar outgoings have come from selling Jordan Ibe to Bournemouth for £15m in 2016 when the club bought him for next to nothing in 2012 – and they raked in £19m selling Dominic Solanke to Bournemouth in 2019, having signed him for free in 2017.
They also managed to flog Fabinho to Al-Ittihad for £40m, as well as selling an ageing Jordan Henderson to Al-Ettifaq for £12m.
Man City’s net spend across this period is almost surprising given the vast amount of money they’ve splashed out to build a title winning and Europe-conquering team.
Guardiola wasn’t at City yet when Klopp first joined Liverpool midway through the 2015-16 season, but he added to the League Cup won by predecessor Manuel Pellegrini in his final season in charge by bringing a total of 16 trophies to the Etihad and counting.
He’s done that – including winning four Premier League titles and the fabled Champions League crown that made up the Treble last season – after being backed with a mammoth outlay on some star players like Rodri (£60m) from Atletico Madrid. The Spaniard ending up being worth every penny after becoming integral to their domination of world football.
Ilkay Gundogan (£20m) and Erling Haaland (£50m), meanwhile, arrived for relative bargain prices from Borussia Dortmund and the £43m and £50m spent on Bernardo Silva and Kyle Walker respectively has been incredible business too.
Fans might question Jack Grealish’s £100m price tag after he joined in 2021 to mixed reviews, while the jury is certainly still out on £77m Josko Gvardiol.
The club – who could being given crippling punishments from the Premier League guilty after facing 115 charges over breaching financial rules – have balanced things out by selling a number of both youngsters and other stars for a hefty profit.
Their sales have perhaps gone under the radar, dwarfed by the big money deals City are known for – but the club have done some great outgoing business, especially in the last two years.
Last season they generated nearly £80m from Arsenal alone after they bought £30m Oleksandr Zinchenko and £45m Gabriel Jesus, both of whom were not first choice in their position. In the same year they offloaded Raheem Sterling to Chelsea for £47m, more or less the same as they paid to sign him from Liverpool in 2015.
And this season the Blues came back again for Cole Palmer, handing City another £42million to put in the piggy bank.
This year Arsenal really loosened the purse-strings by bringing in Declan Rice for £105m, with the midfielder becoming pivotal for Arteta and crucial in the title race, while the £65m acquisition of Kai Havertz looked like a flop at first – before the German went on to score 13 goals in all competitions.
The Gunners have always had good business sense and have made decent money from a lot of players who weren’t first team regulars – including academy stars who cost them nothing.
In 2017, Liverpool paid £35m for injury-prone midfielder Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. Everton took Theo Walcott and Alex Iwobi off their hands for £20m in 2018 and £34m in 2019.
